Guard against power spikes, surges, brown outs, power outages with electrical surge protectors.
Don't lose valuable electronic equipment like your:
to faulty power during storms or whenever a surge, power spike or brown out may happen. Electrical surge suppressors absorb and regulate poor power or power irregularities and protect your electronic equipment.
My first story:
I was watching TV (it was an old, 13" TV) and all of a sudden, it started acting funny. The lights in my house started to dim. It lasted about 20 seconds and then everything went out. It was a brown out. Someone ran into the power transformer down the street. I had never experienced that before and neither had that small TV because it never worked after that. Not getting enough power to it damaged it and I had to get a new one.
My second story:
I moved out of that neighborhood (where people were running into power boxes) and got a condo. The TV in the living room was my main TV, but I had another in my bedroom that had the Tivo on it since my roommate didn't want to split the Tivo bill. It was working great until one day the power went out all of a sudden. After that, the Tivo wouldn't totally boot up anymore. The hard drive in it was fried. That sudden change in power fried it and I had to get a new one.
So be smart and make sure you have not just a cheap power strip on your equipment that has a light and looks ok, but a real surge protector / suppressor that protects your delicate and expensive electronic equipment and appliances. Power strips just act as extension cords.
I learned the hard way and now have surge suppressors protecting every electronic item in my condo. I wish I did before.
A power surge (or transient voltage) is an increase in voltage significantly above the designated level in a flow of electricity. When the increase in voltage lasts three nanoseconds or more, it's called a power surge. When it lasts for one or two nanoseconds, it's called a power spike.
If the power surge or power spike is great enough, it can do some damage on electronic equipment. This very similar to having too much water pressure in a hose. If there is too much water pressure, the hose will burst.
What a surge protector does is send that extra voltage that gets sent through during a power spike or power surge back into the ground wire, protecting your equipment.
You can spend from $10 to $150 or more on a surge suppressor. You'll get what you pay for. To protect expensive equipment like an HDTV, it's worth it to invest the cash.
Get a surge suppressor with:
Use your surge suppressor indoors and in dry conditions. Do not plug it into an extension cord.